VBS

Our church has been experimenting over the past couple of years with different types of Vacation Bible School. We've played with a week's worth of VBS in the evenings, played with VBS over the course of a few week days and a weekend and this year we did just a few hours on a Friday for the toddlers and simultaneously covered the elementary school kids. The following Saturday was devoted to the Jr/Sr High kids and it was done similar to a day at church camp. From what we've heard so far, all 3 groups went well and the kids had a great time and learned quite a bit!

I (Jenni) led the toddler group... here's a sampling of our day.

We started out by coloring animal
posters as the kids were arriving.
Here's Emily and her good friend, Kael.

We kicked things off with some singing. Here's
their version of This Little Light of Mine.

After singing, the kids told me about the
story of Noah's Ark while I turned the
pages in the book and helped them out.

After our story time, I had them help me
tell the story again, this time we made a
picture of it as we told the story. Each kid
got to put several things on the picture.

While we were learning about Noah, Emily's
"Cowboy Daddy" aka Tom (who was really
dressed as a jungle safari guy), was teaching the
elementary school kids about Moses and the
Israelites... and glow sticks... and puppets...
and pillars of light... and snacks... and bookmarks.

Here are some of the girls adding their animals
to the ark... with the help of Abby's mom, Katie.

After story time came crafts. I believe in drilling
a story into the kidlets heads. Hehehe... Guess what?!?! The girls
are making a craft with rainbows, clouds, arks,
and animals, along with a Bible verse that reads:
"The Lord is faithful to all his promises and loving
toward all he has made. Psalm 145:13"

Hey, we're sticking to a theme here... For snack
time, we had nilla wafers (arks) with
icing (rain clouds) and rainbow sprinkles!
The kids got to make their own snacks.

They decided it was quite yummy and
highly recommended the icing...
and LOTS of it!

(Here's Emily with her cousins, Gracie and Abby.)

While we don't normally allow this at home,
when Emily asked if she could lick the icing off
her knife I told her, "Go ahead, that knife isn't
sharp... just don't do it when Nanny's around."
Let's see if she keeps her side of the pact and
if Nanny's still reading our blog.

After the kids wrapped up their snacks, I told
them they could make another craft or keep
coloring. I went over and turned the music
back on from earlier in the evening and what
ensued was a mob of 2 and 3 years olds
(okay, 5 of them) having an impromptu
dance party!

At the end of the evening, when all was said
and done, Emily said she enjoyed the night.
And then she proceeded to show her Daddy
how she's going to earn millions.